


a beat of a butterfly's wings

by Kamu



Series: what causes a storm [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: :'), AU, Canon Compliant, Ch 189 spoilers, Fukurodani Shenanigans, Gen, bokuaka if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-15
Updated: 2016-01-15
Packaged: 2018-05-14 03:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5727817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamu/pseuds/Kamu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To expand a world, you must break down another.</p><p><i>How cruel</i>, Akaashi thinks as their ace falls. </p><p>Inevitably, like dominoes, the rest of the team follows after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a beat of a butterfly's wings

**Author's Note:**

> ch 189 gave me ideas, which entertained the common theme Furudate always incorporated, which I find is entirely refreshing in a sports manga: Losing is painful, your favorite team won't always win, but that won't stop anyone from trying again and again.

His tears are the quiet before a storm. No one notices until the referee orders to line up. Their ace refuses to move like he hadn’t heard him.

Several members call out for Bokuto to hurry it up, or else they’ll get in trouble, but it falls on unhearing ears. The starting members nod and look to Akaashi at the end of the line. Akaashi sighs and bites the inside of his cheek.

For the first time, Akaashi can’t figure out how to face Bokuto.

Akaashi hesitates when reaching out to him and decides to heck with formalities. He rests his hand on Bokuto’s shoulder and rounds to Bokuto’s front. He nearly flinches.

Bokuto shields his eyes. “Don’t—don’t look,” he stutters. His voice is hoarse from yelling the whole five sets, from calling for a toss from Akaashi, from cheering out encouragement to his weary team members for so long. It pains Akaashi, makes him want to avert his eyes and give him privacy, but the referee is giving them a look and the other team (their rivals, their _friends_ ) are casting curious looks where they had already lined up.

“I won’t,” Akaashi promises. He gently steers Bokuto toward where the rest of the team looks on.

They don’t mention it as they shout a thanks for the game, and Akaashi has to curl his hand into the back of Bokuto’s drooping, sweat drenched hair for him to properly bow.

As they join up to shake hands with the opposing team, their first wall of defense—their remarkable ace and captain—breaks down.

“Dammit.” Bokuto clutches the hand in his tightly, using the crook of his free arm to wipe at his eyes in frustration. “I won’t lose next time, I swear! So! Win for us? Now you have a win over Ushiwaka, Tsukki, and me. Go beat that Karasuno a second time, alright? Okay?” Bokuto drops his arm and grips the opposing forearm tightly. His eyes are glassy and huge as he looks up. “You’re top four now! So...so…”

Across from him, Kuroo bites his lip and looks at his best rival of three years succumb to loud, uncontrolled sobs. Fat tears pour down his cheeks and drip down his chin, and all of Nekoma and Fukurodani can’t help but stare in shock.

Kuroo buries his best friend into a hug, snot and salty tears and all.

The rest of the team follow like dominoes.

It begins with Komi, who sniffles with ruddy cheeks. Following is Onaga, a first year but sensing the overwhelming closeness of nationals for the first time. Washio, one of the more composed members of the team, gulps down whatever emotion he would have let out and presses his lips tightly together. Konoha breathes in raggedly, sweat mixing in with the tears eking out the corner of his eyes. Sarukui tries to cover his sadness with a smile, but he falters when he glances at Akaashi.

Akaashi, who had lost all facial expression, looks on numbly despite the wet tracks on his cheeks. He doesn’t look at any of them. He faces ahead with eyes in a far away place. Unlike Bokuto’s outburst, Akaashi’s silent grief is painful to look at. But they do look, and they think this must be what it means to take a loss with pride.

The ride back is quiet besides the occasional sniffing. Everyone is tired, emotionally and physically. Most of them have fallen asleep. Akaashi stares outside where his hand is propped under his chin near the window.

“Hey.”

Akaashi slides his eyes to where Konoha had turned in his seat. His eyes are bloodshot and the tip of his nose is red. Akaashi knows the loss was especially hard on the third years.

“Yes?” Akaashi whispers.

“We’re going out to eat after we get back. Wanna come? We might need someone to make sure Bokuto doesn’t drink anything he shouldn’t.” Konoha gestures to Bokuto snoring fitfully next to Akaashi.

Akaashi isn’t sure if it’s a good idea. He initially wanted to go home and think on what he had done today. After a match that intense, Akaashi needs time alone to recover.

When Akaashi doesn’t respond, Konoha sighs and scratches the back of his neck. “You don’t have to go, it was just a thought. Although, you realize we won’t have many opportunities after this to do this again.” Konoha snickers and drops his hand. “Ah, well, that might make things more complicated, so don’t mention this to Bokuto. He’ll get mopey all over again and then he _really_ won’t want to leave.”

Konoha sits back down and forces Akaashi to wonder on that thought.

_Bokuto-san, leaving._

The Fukurodani volleyball club without Bokuto seems almost preposterous and lacking without a certain ace brightening up the team. Akaashi can’t bear to think deeper or longer on it and focuses on how many stars are out as day transitions into night.

When they get back and clear out from the club room, Akaashi is the last to exit. He overlooks the room, remembering the events of the past year and a half. They were good memories like they had happened the other day. Now, they’re part of the past of happier times.

Akaashi shakes his head, finally closing the door on his second year with the Fukurodani volleyball club.

xXx

He had eaten away at his worries with the promise of dinner being sponsored by the coaches for all their hard work this year. Toasts had been passed around, arms thrown over shoulders and laughs circling the table as they ate to their heart’s content.

Akaashi leaves the restaurant with a satisfied and warm feeling in his stomach...for the others, not so much.

“Oh god,” Konoha groans and covers his mouth as he leans against the wall outside the restaurant. “I shouldn’t have eaten all that crab. I feel sick.”

“Me, too,” Komi whimpers off to the side, having collapsed against Sarukui. Sarukui looks unaffected but he appears pale in contrast to his smile.

Onaga clutches his stomach and limps toward where Bokuto had wandered ahead into an empty park that opened out to a nearby river.

Washio follows like a disapproving parent. Akaashi joins them and the rest inch at their own pace, muttering complaints here and there at Bokuto’s infinite energy.

“You guys are so weak!” Bokuto reprimands, wagging his finger down at them. He points at Akaashi, who sits on a swing set idly. “Look, Akaashi ate like eight servings more than the rest of you and he’s still fine!”

“Not all of us have black holes for a stomach.”

“Yeah, this is tyranny! Overthrow the captain! Make Akaashi captain so he can eat all our leftovers!”

“That’s actually a good idea. Vice-captain Akaashi, what do you think of this?”

Akaashi glances disinterestedly at the rowdy guys scattered in various states of stomach aches around the playground. They look like giants compared to the equipment meant for children ages 3-9.

“As long as I get food, it’s okay,” he replies.

“Akaaaaashi!” Bokuto comes over and shakes the chains of Akaashi’s swing obnoxiously. “You’re supposed to back me up to the last second!”

“I choose free food over you,” Akaashi says, straight-faced.

Bokuto releases him and stomps off toward the monkey bars. “Be that way! I wasn’t gonna leave the captaincy to you anyways,” he huffs.

“He’s lying,” Konoha pipes up from a bench too small for him.

“Konoha-kun!” Bokuto starts, aghast at having been betrayed by his fellow third year.

Akaashi watches Konoha single-handedly stand and fend off Bokuto’s swinging arms, pushing insistently on his forehead so Bokuto’s fists can’t reach him. It’s childish, it’s typical of them, and it makes him smile.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Komi says eloquently from the sandbox, staring at Akaashi.

“What the fuck, indeed,” Sarukui agrees pleasantly from his place upside down at the bottom of the slide.

Washio grunts atop the mini lion spring rocker, bobbing to and fro with a creak.

Onaga barely makes a noise of acknowledgment as he spins tirelessly on the merry-go-round, face down and body spread out like a starfish.

Bokuto gives up the losing battle with a huff, jumping up and down with frustration.

“Stop stopping me! I need to be spoiled, especially today!”

_So he realizes he gets spoiled?_

They gape with zero intention of hiding it.

Their mouths drop even further when Bokuto lands and his knees give out, his arms catching him at the last second. He ends up on his hands and knees. Konoha stares down at him in shock and the rest anticipating what to do next.

“What was that?” Onaga asks, lifting his head from where the merry-go-round had stopped spinning.

Bokuto whips his head around and hastily tries to get up. “Nothing! I must have slipped on a rock or something, ha ha!” Bokuto’s knees wobble. Konoha and Akaashi give him twin pairs of the stink eye. He sighs. “It was a tough game, okay? Nothing’s injured. I talked to coach about it, and he said it’s only fatigue.”

They breathe in a sigh of relief. They should have known. Bokuto would be more somber if it really was as serious as it had looked.

“Anyways,” Bokuto points to each of them accusingly, “Get off your asses! I heard from my classmate there might still be crawfish this time of the year!”

Bokuto takes off toward the river before what he said sinks in.

Bokuto...frolicking around in the river...at night...in the dead of winter.

They whip their heads to where Bokuto had discarded his shoes and begun to roll up the hem of his slacks.

“Oh no, you don’t!”

Konoha is the first to run after him. Komi trails after, stopping a few times to get sand out of his pockets and shoes. Washio sits up and fast walks determinedly, and Onaga stumbles a bit from dizziness before taking off after them. Sarukui flips so he’s upright and lumbers toward the rest lazily.

Only Akaashi is left behind, blinking at the record breaking time it took Bokuto to get one bad idea and the rest to react a moment after.

Getting up from the swing, Akaashi brushes off any fly away dirt and heads over where Konoha has Bokuto trapped in a headlock as Komi and Sarukui hurriedly try to put Bokuto’s shoes and socks on, in that order.

Akaashi pauses to admire the moon glittering prettily over the water, the silhouettes of his team and Bokuto moving across its rippling surface. He sighs and pulls his scarf closer, raising his face to bathe his face in the gentle light.

Akaashi thinks he’ll miss this after all is done and over with.

He’ll live through this—and everything will be okay.

He opens his eyes to the sight of his ace laughing and jostling with everyone. They catch each other’s eyes and Bokuto waves, smile wide and bright.

_“Do you like volleyball?”_

He remembers Bokuto asking this of Tsukishima, Karasuno’s middle blocker during the summer training camp. He had answered, _i_ _t’s only a club_ , at first, and then came to a realization as Bokuto recounted his own experiences.

_“Do you like volleyball?”_

A then second year Bokuto had asked Akaashi this back in his first year, when he was uncertain if he was qualified to take the official setter position when there were most likely third years vying for the position as well.

His answer had been tinged with uncertainty and the reverence of an underclassman to their senpai as he replied, “ _Sure, Bokuto-san.”_ Bokuto, smiling and nodding his head as if he knew something Akaashi didn’t, had patted his back and told him to give him more tosses, pretty please?

_“Do you like volleyball?”_

He understands this hidden meaning Bokuto meant all that time ago.

Akaashi untucks the scarf from his chin and smiles at Bokuto, mouthing his true answer to the moonlight.

With wide eyes, Bokuto yelps and stumbles back into the river, shoes and socks and all. Konoha wheezes and clutches his stomach at this turn of development. Eventually, the rest join in, too.

As Bokuto sulks in the ankle deep water, Akaashi laughs as he walks to where they’re lying on the river bank. Bokuto blinks at him and everyone’s laughter dies out as Akaashi steps out of his socks and shoes, digging something out of his gym bag and offering it to Bokuto.

“Nice game,” he says, quiet laughs escaping him. When the words leave him, he knows they mean so much more as Bokuto’s face changes when he holds Akaashi’s hand through the towel to pull himself up.

“Nice game,” Bokuto says, voice warm and his cheeks bright as water drips down his temples and the ends of his hair in rivulets.

Their moment is interrupted with Sarukui’s hooting and Komi rolling around on his back at the state of Bokuto’s hair without the gravity-defying hair gel. Bokuto takes their bait and banters with them, shaking Akaashi’s shoulder to persuade him to take his side.

His smile fades, but the fondness in his eyes doesn’t.

Yes, he’ll definitely miss this as he reaches around to hug Bokuto.

Definitely.

**Author's Note:**

> [blog](http://kamuwrites.tumblr.com/)


End file.
